


and of course i forgive (i've seen how you live)

by leigh57



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6747457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh57/pseuds/leigh57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a tiny post-ep for 'The Same Boat,' aka The Way I Wish It Ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and of course i forgive (i've seen how you live)

**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn't get my need for a different ending to 'The Same Boat' out of my brain, and this is what happened. My usual smush warning applies, although this is also sort of angst-lite (sort of). 
> 
> The title is from one of my Caryl anthems, Vienna's Teng's magnificent 'Eric's Song.'

She falls asleep in the RV on the drive back to Alexandria.

Rosita dissolved two Dalmane capsules into a bottle of water and watched as Carol drank the entire thing down In a few gulps.

(She consented to the meds willingly enough, although he’s still not convinced she fully processed what Rosita was saying.)

But he can still hear Maggie's voice, low, while Rosita was in the corner checking Carol over. (She'd sat there through the entire examination -- cooperative but virtually silent -- using the minimum number of words necessary to respond to Rosita's questions. And maybe Rosita hadn't noticed the relentless trembling in Carol's hands, but he had.)

_She had a panic attack. At first I thought she was faking so they'd think she was weak, but she couldn't stop. She couldn't breathe. I don't know what would have happened if they hadn't taken off the gag. You have to give her something. Her mind needs a break._

Carol's head's in his lap, soft hair dark with sweat, her body curled in on itself, arms clutching her sides. Dirt and blood under her fingernails, singe marks on her hands, a deep bluish-purple bruise barely visible where her shirt's hiked up because she keeps shifting positions even in sleep.

He wishes he could believe that her body asleep halfway across his means something more than the inevitable surrender to every kind of exhaustion a person can feel, but he knows it doesn't.

She just can't fight anymore, and he's the one who happened to be closest when she hit the wall.

He doesn't give a fuck why though. She's here, safe (at least physically), pressing her face into his stomach like she wants to hide, shut everything out.

Even in sleep, her breathing's all funny and uneven -- too fast and not deep enough. Her chest barely expands before she's trying to breathe again. She startles too, every couple minutes, so violently that he's convinced she'll wake herself up.

She doesn't.

The RV lurches over muddy ruts in the road, and Daryl's stomach twists in protest as he listens to Rick and Michonne's muffled conversation from the front seat and the quick click of cards as Rosita and Jesus play Blackjack. The wind's picked up, howling past the windows and intensifying the weird rushing he already feels in his ears.

His hands are sticky, and he doesn't even know why.

He glances down, watching the changes on Carol's face until his chest aches, until he's digging slices in his own palms with his ragged fingernails.

He doesn't wanna know what she's dreaming about.

She said  _No_  when he asked if if she was good, and that's the only thing in the universe he needs to know.

_________________________

When the RV lurches to a stop in front of the house, it's not even hard for him to swing her into his arms and carry her up the porch steps.

"You need any help?" Rosita asks softly when they reach the kitchen. The semi-darkness can't hide the concern flickering over her exhausted face.

Daryl swallows the automatic "I've got it" that bubbles up in the back of his throat, and instead says, voice pitched as low and soothing as he can make it, "I could use some bandages. Disinfectant. Couple glasses of water."

Rosita nods, already moving toward the pantry off the kitchen. "Get her upstairs. I'll bring whatever I can find."

He tries for "Thanks," but the word comes out more like an ashy cough.

Rosita says, “No problem” anyway.

_________________________

Just the thought of undressing her while she's asleep makes him cringe, but her clothes are filthy, bloody, and saturated with the smell of smoke and gas. He unlaces her boots and gently pulls them off as a brief delaying tactic.

Taking a deep breath, he lifts her shirt a little, halfway hoping that his impromptu exam will wake her up enough that he can at least ask if she'd like to put on a clean shirt.

What he sees on her stomach and ribs assaults him with a rolling wave of nausea so severe that he drops his head to his knees and pulls in long, shaky, uneven breaths until the worst of it slides away and he trusts his body enough to sit up again.

Vicious bruises. Boot marks. Congealed blood.

It's so useless, his helpless rage. All of it. But he wants to do the exact same thing to the motherfucker who did this to her. His fists tremble with the urge to smash into bone, to crack ribs.

_Get it together, you piece of shit. This isn't about you._

He dips a cotton ball in hydrogen peroxide and gets to work on the broken skin over her ribs.

It's raining now, steady rhythmic assault of water on wood.

He thinks about sleeping in shitty tents before they found the prison, waking up damp and bone-chilled, pants soaked with muddy water.

He was happy then.

He knows that now.

_________________________

He's almost done bandaging her when with no warning at all, she opens her eyes. Wide and blue and beautiful and sad and broken and everything in the world he's scared of.

Everything in the world he loves.

She's disorientated though, unfocused (Rosita said the drugs would keep her out of it for a while), and he can see the panic exploding behind her eyes.

"Hey, hey." Without even thinking, he leans forward and brushes a kiss across her forehead, and his hand lands softly in her hair. "You're home. In your bed. It's almost morning. Everything's okay."

She stares at him for a long, loaded moment, and then he can just watch some horror of a memory rise up in her mind. Her eyes fill with tears, so quickly that a few slide sideways toward the pillow, and he's honestly so fucking torn between anguish (seeing her cry breaks him) and gratitude (this is real, it's so real, and he needs the real her like he needs air) that he wonders if his mind might split in two.

"I can hear them screaming," she whispers. "And it won't stop." The blanket he pulled up to her waist is balled into her hands -- her knuckles white with the force of her grip.

He doesn't want to ask, but he knows that's what she needs him to do. "Tell me," he says, the words rebellious and sticky in his throat. He wants to take her hands, let her hold him instead of the blanket.

"The men we burned." She's coughs on the last syllable but swallows through it, determined to keep going. "We cornered them in a room and lit the gas before we slammed the door. They just kept-" Her cracked voice slices his heart. "Screaming."

The tears keep sliding down her temples, damp dark circles that slip into her hair.

There are so many true things he could say, that he wants to say so much he can almost feel his mouth forming the words:

_You didn't have any goddamn choice._

_They would have killed both of you._

_Maggie said you saved her._

But he knows her, he does, and even this tiny fragment of information about the screaming is a barely open doorway, one she'll slam shut in his face if he says any of those things.

So he doesn't say any of those things.

Instead, he surprises the shit out of himself by reaching for her hand, gently folding his fingers over hers until he feels her death grip on the blanket relaxing. After a second, she laces her fingers with his and looks up at him, eyes shiny.

Pained.

Haunted.

Couple weeks ago when he was grabbing something in the infirmary, he overheard Denise tell some poor Alexandrian dickhead some shit like,  _Not everybody wants you to fix them. Sometimes they just need to know you're there._

An explosion of thunder cracks out of nowhere; the house shakes a little and Carol's fingers grip his until it’s pushing against pain.

"What do you need?" he blurts out before he can edit himself. "What can I do?"

"Can you help me change my shirt?" She rubs at the edge of her tear-smeared eye with her free hand. "But if you don't feel comfor-"

"Stop. I wanna help. Rosita brought up a clean one. Lemme find it."

And the expression on her face isn't a smile, but it's the closest thing he's seen in months, and in that tenth of a second the air in the whole room goes three shades brighter.

He wants to hold her hand forever, but he releases her fingers and goes to rummage through the pile of stuff Rosita left on the chair inside the door.

_________________________

He's dozing uncomfortably in the chair beside her bed -- head angled strangely against the wood and his back folded in a way he knows he'll regret in the morning -- when he hears her voice, so quiet against the pounding rain outside that he almost can't make out her words.

"Will you stay with me tonight?"

He leans forward, elbows landing on the edge of her bed. "'M'right here. Not goin' anywhere."

"You can't sleep in that chair," she retorts, and it's there again, the almost-smile that makes his insides jello and his cheeks overheat.

"What d'you-"

She's already scooting over, although the muffled gasp and the way she locks her jaw make it clear that her body's not appreciating the exertion. "There's plenty of room. Just take off your boots and go to sleep, okay?"

Out of nowhere, Abe's voice.

_You ever think about it? Settling down?_

He unlaces his boots and puts them neatly by the chair.

Pulls his dirty shirt over his head and yanks on the clean one Rosita was smart enough to add to the pile.

Lifts the sheet and settles in gingerly, inch by inch, determined not to jostle her even a little.

Her voice floats through the quiet room. "Stop, I'm not breakable."

But she is, oh god she is, and now he knows.

He maneuvers just enough to get comfortable on his side, resting his head on the pillow and watching her face, her eyes already blinking shut again, tiny salty tear tracks drying at the edges. He wants to touch them, wipe them away.

But he's distracted by the feel of her hand on his forearm, fingers drifting lightly down until she intertwines them with his.

Again.

The rain's lighter now -- a gentle tapping instead of a rushing deluge -- and the wind's died down.

Carol's not breathing funny anymore, just soft and quiet and even, like it's supposed to be. The way he remembers it all those nights huddled up by some piece of shit fire in the middle of nowhere. The way he remembers it when he used to slow down by her cell at the prison, when he stealthily checked on everyone before he went up to his bunk for the night.

_You ever think about it? Settling down?_

He holds her fingers in his, tracing the soft skin with the pad of his thumb.

_I already have, asshole._

_I already have._


End file.
